September 10, 2018
The Statistics Office of the Republic of Slovenia (Statistični urad RS, SURS) has an excellent website that repays repeated visits and curiosity. One area of interest to many is names, both first and family – how common they are, and where those who have them live.
Overall, the five most common family names in Slovenia are Novak, Horvat, Kovačič, Krajnc, and Zupančič, although there are significant regional variations. For example, Horvat is top in Primorska, but Kotnik in Koroška, Drnovšek in Zasavska, Leban in Goriška and Kocjančič in Obalno-kraška. At the other end of the scale, the five least common names nationwide are Zalar, Humar, Založnik, Škof, and Štrukelj.
Meanwhile, the 200 most common male and female first names can be found here. For men these are Franc, Janez, Ivan, Anton and Marko, and for women they are Marija, Ana, Maja, Irena and Mojca. You can also click on the little charts to see the change in popularity of each name over time.
You can see the full list of the top 200 family names for the whole of Slovenia here, while for more details by region see here. You can also search by first and family names here, if looking for something more specific. It’s with this we find that Jožef Horvat just beats Franc Novak among men, while for women Marija Novak is in the top place, followed by Marija Horvat.
